Undoubtedly, rutting in asphalt concrete pavement is considered a major dilemma in terms of pavement performance and safety faced by road users as well as the road authorities. Rutting is a bowl-shaped depression in the wheel paths that develop gradually with the increasing number of load applications. Heavy axle loadings besides the high pavement summer temperature enhance the problem of rutting. According to the AASHTO design equation for flexible pavements, a 1.1 in rut depth will reduce the present serviceability index of relatively new pavement, having no other distress, from 4.2 to 2.5. With this amount of drop in serviceability, the entire life of the pavement in effect has been lost. Therefore, it is crucial to look at the mechanism, possible reasons, as well as techniques, to reduce the rutting in order to offer long service life and safe roadways. To this end, the need has been arising for this research which deals mainly with a thorough review of the existing literature to highlight some key points for the researchers and pavement engineers related to rutting mechanism, measurement, and criteria, both intrinsic (mixture variables) and extrinsic (traffic and temperature) contributory factors to rutting, material characterization, test methods, and prediction methodologies, as well as possible ways to minimize the rutting distress in asphalt concrete pavement. So far, this research attempts to bridge the gap in the literature that frequently only addresses a single aspect of rutting by providing an in-depth review of rutting in asphalt concrete and thereby offers a complete comprehensive understanding of this major distress type.
This study focuses on the behavior of simply supported perforated prestressed concrete rafters (PPCRs) under single midspan monotonic static loading. The experimental program consisted of testing seven specimens; one solid (control) rafter, and six perforated with quadrilateral openings. The main investigated variables are the number and height of the openings. The test findings indicate that, in comparison to the solid rafter, the presence of quadrilateral openings in the PPCRs led to reducing the load capacity by (4.3-36%) and increase the midspan deflection at ultimate by (14.8-33%). Also, increasing the number of concrete posts between openings resulted in increasing the failure load and decreasing the deflection at all stages o
... Show MoreThe structural behavior of Segmental Precast Post-tensioned Reinforced Concrete (SPPRC) beams largely depends on the behavior of the joints that connect between the segments. In this research, series of static tests were carried out to investigate the behavior of full-scale SPPRC beams with different types of epoxy-glued joint configurations; multi-key joint, single key, and plain key joint. The reference specimen was monolithically casted beam and the other specimens were segmental beams with five segments for each one. The general theme from the experimental results reflects an approximate similarity in the behavior of the four beams with slight differences. Due to the high tensile strength of the used epoxy in comparison to concr
... Show MoreGiven the importance of ecology and its entry into various fields in general and the urban environment particularly; ecological cities take wide ranges of application at multiple regional and global levels. However, it repeatedly noted that there was a state of cognitive confusion and overlapping in the term ecology comes from the diversity of implementation within several disciplines. Architects, designers, and planners have instilled biological development directly into the formal principles as well as the social structures of the ecological cities. Therefore, the research presents a rapid review of the most relevant areas that dealt with the ecological cities by research and analysis at various levels, from the concept and definition of
... Show MoreGiven the importance of ecology and its entry into various fields in general and the urban environment particularly; ecological cities take wide ranges of application at multiple regional and global levels. However, it repeatedly noted that there was a state of cognitive confusion and overlapping in the term ecology comes from the diversity of implementation within several disciplines. Architects, designers, and planners have instilled biological development directly into the formal principles as well as the social structures of the ecological cities. Therefore, the research presents a rapid review of the most relevant areas that dealt with the ecological cities by research and analys
Many patients with advanced type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and all patients with T1DM require insulin to keep blood glucose levels in the target range. The most common route of insulin administration is subcutaneous insulin injections. There are many ways to deliver insulin subcutaneously, such as vials and syringes, insulin pens, and insulin pumps. Though subcutaneous insulin delivery is the standard route of insulin administration, it is associated with injection pain, needle phobia, lipodystrophy, noncompliance, and peripheral hyperinsulinemia. Therefore, the need exists to deliver insulin in a minimally invasive or noninvasive way and in the most physiological way. Inhaled insulin was the first approved noninvasive and alternative way
... Show MoreA steel-concrete composite structure (1) is described. The steel-concrete composite structure comprises a steel member (2) having an upper surface (5) and a plurality of shear connector elements (6) upstanding from the upper surface and a concrete slab (4) having upper and lower surfaces (7, 8). The slab is supported on its lower surface by the upper surface of the steel member. The slab comprises a plurality of through holes (9) between the upper and lower surfaces, each through hole tapering towards the lower surface so as to form an inverted frustally-shaped seating surface (10). The concrete slab is configured and positioned with respect to the steel member such that at least one shear connector element projects into each through hole.
... Show MoreThe Braille Recognition System is the process of capturing a Braille document image and turning its content into its equivalent natural language characters. The Braille Recognition System's cell transcription and Braille cell recognition are the two basic phases that follow one another. The Braille Recognition System is a technique for locating and recognizing a Braille document stored as an image, such as a jpeg, jpg, tiff, or gif image, and converting the text into a machine-readable format, such as a text file. BCR translates an image's pixel representation into its character representation. As workers at visually impaired schools and institutes, we profit from Braille recognition in a variety of ways. The Braille Recognition S
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